Tag Archives: Street-An-Nowan

Charles was the sixth of eight children of fisherman Peter Jacco and Catherine Noall Kelynack but unlike his brothers he chose to work as a carpenter rather than on the sea. He married Alice Bartle Horswell, a mariner’s daughter who was born in Padstow but who was living in Penzance.

Alice’s mother was a farmer’s daughter called Mercy Bartle. She was born in St Enoder parish, 33 miles up county from Penzance, south-east of Newquay. By 1826 she was based in Penzance, aged 20, where she married sailor Henry Horswell on 2 January 1827 in Madron parish. When Alice was born later that year they baptised her in July in Padstow, where Henry’s family roots were. It can’t have been a pleasant journey for Mercy, travelling 47 miles either very pregnant or as a new mother.

The young family returned to Penzance, and by 1832 were back in Penzance for the birth of their son Henry. He was not a healthy child: he was baptised on 13 November but buried four days later in Madron, Penzance Chapelry [later Penzance St Mary]. At that time Henry Snr was master of a vessel. Their third child, Helen/Ellen was baptised on 22 March 1834, also in Madron, Penzance Chapelry, at which time Henry’s occupation was noted as captain of a vessel.

Henry died within the next six years; the 1841 census found Mercy living in Chapel Street, Penzance, with her younger daughter Ellen. Later that year Mercy re-married, on 6 December 1841. Her second husband George Hall was a wool comber, son of a wheel-wright. Mercy had shaved a few years off her age when recording her second marriage!

Together they had a son, George, born c 1844 in Penzance. However by 30 March 1851 census Mercy is again found without her husband. She is running a lodging house in Morrab Place Penzance, with Ellen and young George living with her. Ellen was 16 and working as a dressmaker. Mercy died in spring 1857, aged 51.

Image from 1851 census

In March 1851 Charles and Alice with daughter Wilmott Amelia [thanks so much to Annie for suggesting this name via a comment below this blog post] were living 2 doors along from his sister Honor in the Fradgan, Street-An-Nowan, Newlyn. In October they baptised their daughter Mary Jane in Paul Parish Church but sadly their first daughter was not with them much longer: in November 1852 Wilmott Amelia died and was buried back in Paul parish. The following year when their daughter Margaret was baptised in April 1853 the ceremony took place in Madron, Penzance Chaplaincy [the daughter church of Madron].

I couldn’t find them in the 1861 census so assumed they may have emigrated in the 1850s, as hints on Ancestry suggested they emigrated to Australia.

This proved to be the case as in 1859Charles worked as a carpenter in Prahan [now an inner suburb of Melbourne] but then a young settlement which had only been surveyed for development in 1840[1]. I found a letter from him and fellow-workers in the Argus newspaper, sticking up for a fellow-worker who’d been inaccurately maligned in the paper which had stated he’d been sacked when in fact he’d got a different job for health reasons.

Letter in The Argus, from Trove, October 1859

In March 1872 the family was grief-stricken when their younger daughter Margaret died aged only 19. She was buried in St Kilda Cemetery and the funeral procession headed there from the family home on the High Street.[2]

As I don’t have access to the Australian Census or immigration records it was a treat to find these mentions of the family. I had just googled ‘Charles Jaco, Australia’ and Google suggested newspaper stories on Trove http://trove.nla.gov.au/ I’d vaguely heard of Trove but had never used it before. It’s a free online Australian archive of newspaper stories and was fantastic for confirming their stories which previously I’d come across via a ‘probable link’ death record and non-evidenced hints on Ancestry public trees. Fortunately the name Jaco at that time in Australia was uncommon, apart from Trove search-engine suggestions of ‘Jacob’ and ‘Jacobite’.

Another, happier, story I found on Trove was a family wedding intimation: in March 1874 Mary Jane married “Robert Henry, second son of Jared Graham, Esq, Euroa”[3], and the ceremony took place in the family home on the High Street, Prahan.

The final story I found on Trove was a reference to Charles’ will in 1876, after he died in November 1876 aged 51. Alice died three years later, in April 1879, aged 49.

On 20 June 1837 Queen Victoria became queen after the death of her uncle William IV. At that time shoemaker William and Alice Rowe were settled with a large family in Street-an-Nowan, Newlyn, Cornwall. You can read the earlier part of their story here: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

That year their eldest son John, by then working as a mason, married Sarah Sampson in neighbouring Penzance; her father was a butcher with a shop and home on Market Jew Street. In 1839 William and Alice became grandparents when Sarah and John had their first of eight children, Elizabeth.

On 6 June 1841 the census recorded shoemaker William and Alice living in Street-an-Nowan. Grace and Alice were both at home and working as female servants; Patience (11) and Elizabeth (9-10) were still children. Youngest child James wasn’t with his parents that evening. I haven’t confirmed a location for eldest son John for that particular night but his family were living in neighbouring Penzance on Market Jew Street where his wife and daughter were living in her butcher father’s house. Maybe he was away looking for work as a mason.

Tolcarne Inn, Newlyn

In June 1841 their oldest daughter Mary Ann had been a servant in the Tolcarne Inn over the Combe; on 21 May 1843 she married a fisherman called Thomas Rowe (no relationship known) in Paul Church.

Pigot’s Directory 1841 reported about Newlyn that in addition to fishing pilchards and mackerel “A valuable lead mine is in the parish, as are several chalybeate springs. There are two annual fairs held here—on the first Tuesday in October and 8th November”.

Early in spring 1844 Alice became ill with Phithesis: ‘pulmonary tuberculosis or a similar progressive wasting disease’.

However there was happiness in summer 1844 when their daughter Alice Daniel Rowe married fisherman Bernard Victor in Trinity Wesleyan Chapel, Newlyn on 10 June. She moved to neighbouring Mousehole where Bernard lived and fished. Their oldest child, Gamaliel ‘Gift of God’ Victor was baptised on 24 November 1844 in Paul Church. Bernard had an interest in the Cornish language and spoke with local old people to record words for posterity as the language was dying out.

Mousehole Harbour

Around about this time (c1844) William’s eldest son John and his young family moved to Wales for him to find work as a mason.

On 9 March 1845 Alice, William’s wife of 33 years and mother of his 9 children, died in Newlyn aged 51. Their youngest son, James Daniel Rowe, was only 10 at that time.

In March 1851 William had his three daughters Grace, Patience and Elizabeth living with him in Foundry Lane, Street-an-Nowan. Grace had become a straw bonnet maker, so perhaps she’d enjoyed working with her father as a girl and/or preferred making bonnets to being a female servant as she had been ten years before. Patience and Elizabeth were still living at home but with no profession recorded. Youngest son James was working on the Brittania fishing boat in neighbouring Mousehole.

That was the year of the Great Exhibition at Chrystal Palace London. A local woman, 84-year-old Mary Kelynack of Tolcarne, became famous nationally by walking nearly 300 miles to London to see the Exhibition, carrying a basket on her head. There she met the Lord Mayor and took tea – preferring that to wine – with the Lady Mayoress; she was presented with a sovereign. She was also presented to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

Paul Church

Two years later William’s daughter Patience Daniel Rowe married mariner Thomas Tonkin Tremethick on 23 January 1853 in Paul Church; William’s first Tremethick grand-child Joe was born on 8 December 1853.

A curious midsummer custom went on in Mount’s Bay in June[1]. On 23 and 28 June tar barrels were lit and flaming torches swung in the streets. Bonfires were lit in Marazion, the Mount, Newlyn and Mousehole so the Bay “glows with a girdle of flame”. Young people played ‘Thread-the-needle’ along the streets: “Lads and lasses join hands, and run furiously through the streets, vociferating “An eye – an eye – an eye!” at length they suddenly stop, and the two last of the string, elevating their clasped hands, form an eye to this enormous needed, through which the thread of populace runs, and thus they continue to repeat the game until weariness dissolves the union.” Unsurprisingly the following day was a lot quieter, with people idling with music on the water (called ‘having a pen’orth of sea’).”

Boase Street, Newlyn, with mid-path drain

Newlyn at the time may have been scenic but smelt rather overwhelming[2]: “They are a colony of fisherman, with narrow paved lanes, glistening with pilchard scales in the season – with external staircases and picturesque interiors, of which glimpses are obtained through an open doorway or window.” However they “may call to mind the semi-barbarous habitations of some foreign countries – such as Spain. The perfume of garlic fills the air, and other odours not so sweet hasten the step of the traveller. These arise from little enclosures which front every cottage door. They are neatly bordered with stones or shells, and consist – not of a flower-bed, but of a dunghill, formed chiefly of the refuse of fish, in which the process of decay is hastened by the activity of many unhappy-looking fowls and pigs.”

On 7 October 1859 William’s youngest son James Daniel married Catherine Jaco. She was a Newlyn girl and the daughter of Master Mariner Benjamin Jaco. They had the first of their 8 children in January 1860, Benjamin Jaco Rowe [my ancestor].

A few weeks later William became a great-grandfather when John’s oldest daughter Elizabeth had a daughter out of wedlock in Wales – she and the baby’s father Phillip Tripp later married in Madron on 20 March 1862.

Looking up Foundry Lane

On 2 April 1861 William, still working as a shoemaker, was living at 2 Foundry Lane, in the Street-an-Nowan area of what is now Newlyn. His dressmaker daughter Grace was still living at home with him. Another daughter, Patience D Tremethick, was living next door at number 3 with her merchant mariner husband Thomas and their five young children; the oldest being 7 and the youngest just 10 months old.

Oldest son John had been widowed in the early 1860s and he remarried on 17 December 1865 in Madron; his wife was a widow called Cecilia Paynter Stevens who had children of her own and lived for a few years in New Zealand. Around 1866 John’s daughter Elizabeth and her husband Philip Tripp moved away; she died, he put two youngest boys in an orphanage where they lived for many years until the family tracked down the surviving son.

In 18 Sep 1867 his grand-daughter Mary Wright Victor [Alice and Bernard’s oldest daughter] married naval carpenter Edward Albert Kelynack in Newlyn St Peter. Mary stayed in Newlyn for the first years of her marriage while Edward was away at sea, living with her aunt, bonnet-maker Grace Daniel Rowe, William’s second daughter.

William saw his grandson Joe Tremethick start with the West Cornwall Railway in Penzance in 1868; Joe ended up working his way round England with the Great Western Railway.

Paul Cemetery

William died on 15 December 1869 of old age and exhaustion. His caring eldest child Mary Ann Rowe was present at his death and she registered his death the following day.[3] He was recorded as 81, although on balance of the evidence of baptisms and the 1841 census he was probably only 76. William was buried on 19 December in Paul Cemetery up above Newlyn.

William and Alice’s son and fourth child James was baptised on 16 June 1822 but died young. Their daughter Alice was baptised on 31 October 1824 and sixth child Thomas was baptised 19 August 1827. Next came Patience Daniel who was baptised on 15 March 1830, all were baptised in Paul Church.

Times continued to be hard for the ordinary people; the summer of 1823 was a wet one with the rain delaying the gathering in of hay and beating down corn so it would not ripen. However signs were good for the pilchard harvest.

In April 1827 there was the ‘melancholy circumstance’ when ‘A very fine and fast-sailing-fishing-smack, named the Blucher… manned by six men and a boy’ left Newlyn for Bristol but the weather worsened; they were heading for Padstow but the smack and her crew were lost when the boat ran onto the Dunbar Sands and “Five widows and eighteen children are left to lament the disastrous event that has deprived them of their natural protectors; the unfortunate deceased were all men of excellent character”.[1]

On Monday 24 September 1827 there was local excitement when a wrestling championship was held in a field on the Newlyn-Penzance road with two champion wrestlers “Mr [John] Polkinghorne, the champion of England, and Mr Richard Saundry, in his day the champion of the west, were the well-chosen umpires.”

The very enthusiastic Morning Chronicle reporter wrote that “At twelve o’clock the sight was very imposing – some thousands of the most athletic young men that the world can produce (each of whom would have honoured Leonidas at the Straits of Thermopylae, Bonaparte in passing the Bridge of Lodi, or even Wellington himself in the battle of Waterloo), seated or standing in perfect silence and order, and with intense interest, to witness and participate in a sport for which their ancestors were so justly renowned. It was impossible for any man, deserving that name, to behold the spectacle of so many manly youths assembled on such an occasion, without emotions of admiration and delight, and without congratulating himself as belonging to the species. It was a sight and occasion, as connected with the maintenance of strength, courage and agility, among the people, worthy the countenance, presence, encouragement, and support of Majesty itself.”[2]

Another heavy storm in Mounts Bay was reported in November 1828 and the Dove broke its moorings and made for Newlyn: “A boat was launched at Newlyn, but only three persons could be found to venture out; these were Mr Pearce, the agent for Lloyd’s at Penzance; Lieut. Hearle of the Preventive Service at Mousehole, and Mr Nicholas, carpenter of the Dove, who was on shore on duty. This being the case, the boat could not be got off, and the spectators hastened to the beach, where the crew of the Dove strove to get a line on shore but were unable to do so, in consequence of the offset of the waves.

“The fisherman brought the ropes of their nets, and after great efforts, a rope was thrown on board by Mr Pearce, at the eminent risk of his life. The connexion once secured, other ropes were got from the vessel to the shore, and in about half an hour the whole of the crew were rescued from their perilous situation. Lieut. Stocker was the last person who left the vessel. As it was supposed that one of the crew was missing, Mr Pearce volunteered to go on board to see for him, which hazardous enterprize he effected, having been twice washed from the gunwhale by the tremendous sea that was running. No person being visible, he returned, and afterwards it was ascertained that all the crew were safe.”[3]

On 26 Jun 1830, in his gilded world, George IV died and his brother became William IV.

Meanwhile back in Newlyn, in December 1830, another storm pounded Newlyn and the Sherborne Mercury reported that “Gwavas Quay, the road of communication between Street-on-Nowan [SIC] and Newlyn Town [the two parts of what’s now Newlyn] is quite beaten down, and the road from Penzance to Tolcarne has been overflowed in such a manner as to be rendered totally impassable.”[4]

William and Alice’s daughter Elizabeth was baptised on 5 December 1832 and their ninth and final child, my ancestor James Daniel Rowe, was baptised on 30 March 1835 in Paul Church.

Patience, the daughter of shoemaker William Rowe and his wife Alice nee Daniel, was baptised on 15 March 1830 in Paul Parish Church, Cornwall, a few months before the death of King George IV, the former Prince Regent and builder of the Royal Pavilion at Brighton.

She was the seventh of their nine children, and spent her childhood in the Street-An-Nowan area of the Cornish fishing village Newlyn.

Foundry Lane, Street-an-Nowan, Newlyn

Her mother died in 1845 when Patience was only 14. By 30 March 1851 she was living with her widowed cordwainer father and her two sisters in Foundry Lane, Street-An-Nowan. Her older sister Grace was a bonnet maker and Patience must have also been good with her fingers as later in life she became a seamstress; younger sister Elizabeth had no profession recorded.

Patience married a fisherman named Thomas Tremethick in January 1853 and the following year they had the first of their ten children, Joseph.

After their marriage they too lived in Foundry Lane. Soon after Joseph they had James and Grace, Thomas and Annie so within 7 years [by the April 1861 census] they had five children. Never a dull moment but a lot of sleepless nights?

Trinity Wesleyan Methodist Chapel with hall, Newlyn, Cornwall

Patience and Thomas’ first four children had been baptised in Paul Church, up on the hill above Newlyn, but Annie was baptised in the Trinity Wesleyan Methodist Chapel just 2 minutes walk up from Foundry Lane in Street-An-Nowan.

On 25 September 1862 their next child, son John, was born and was baptised a Methodist the following month again at Trinity. Albania was born on 19 May 1865 and she too was baptised at Trinity, two months later.

However when Samuel was born in spring 1867 the family chose St Peter’s Church, Newlyn, for his baptism that May.

In December 1869 her father died, he was still living in the Foundry Lane. By April 1871 the family were living a minute away in Chapel Street Road, still in Street-An-Nowan.

Patience and Thomas’ sixth son and ninth child William Rowe Tremethick was born c August 1870 and was baptised that September, again in St Peter’s Church, Newlyn. On 6 March 1872 her last child, daughter Patience, was born in Newlyn but for Patience’s baptism the family returned to the Trinity Wesleyan Methodist Chapel. I wonder why this ‘church-hopping’? Maybe they didn’t like one of the ministers…

Patience Jnr was to be their last child, for in February 1878 Thomas died and was buried on 27 February in Paul Cemetery.

The first of their children to marry was Grace who married James Richards in St Peter’s Church, Newlyn on 8 Sep 1880. James was a Royal Navy Quartermaster who had been born in Newlyn but spent part of his youth on the Isles of Scilly.

Florence Place, Newlyn

By April 1881 Patience had moved to what was technically the next parish (Madron) although the house was actually only 5 minutes walk away. She had six of her children living with her, four of whom were bringing in a wage, and was herself working as a ‘steampstress’. Joe (25) was employed by the Great Western Railway, John (18) was a printer and Albania (15) and Samuel (13) were grocer’s assistants. Annie (20) and William (10), a scholar, were also living at home.

By then Patience’s second child James was working as as a domestic groom at Charleton Rectory, Devon. Oldest daughter Grace was married and living in Devonport, Devon and youngest daughter Patience (aged 9) was away visiting her sister Grace on that night in April 1881. I suspect 23-year old Thomas was a sailor away at sea but haven’t tracked down that record yet.

That summer her daughter Annie married William Crask, a widowed Norfolk-born light-house keeper who was living locally.

In spring 1882 Patience became a grandmother when Grace and James Richards had their first son, Albert Morris Tremethick Richards; sadly the baby only lived about a year, dying in spring 1883.

In April 1883 oldest son Joe married Bessie in Devonport. In January 1884 Patience again became a grandmother when Joe and Bessie had their first child, daughter Ethel, far away in Aston [now Birmingham], Warwickshire, where Joe’s job with GWR had taken him. They also had their son, Percy, there in 1887.

Around May 1885 James married Kate Edwards in Kingsbridge. Between 1890 and 1898 they had five children there: John (1890), Patience (1892) Margaret (1895), William (1896) and Lena (1898).

Tragedy struct the family in November 1885 when Patience’s sixth child John died aged 28; he was buried in Paul Cemetery.

On 16 May 1887 her sailor son Thomas married Mary Badcock in St Mary’s Church, Penzance, with his younger sister Albania as witness. That July Thomas’ oldest sister Grace Richards had her second son, Stanley, still in Devonport. She and James had three further children there: Mabel (c1889), Gladys (1890)and Wilbert J (c1898).

In April 1888 Patience’s daughter Annie Crask died, aged 28, and was buried in Paul Cemetery like her younger brother John. Also that year her eighth child Samuel emigrated to Australia and as far as I’m aware stayed there all his life.

In spring 1889 her youngest daughter and namesake Patience died. She was aged only 17.

In April 1891 Patience was living on her own means in St James Street, Penzance, Albania was living with her and working as an assistant in a boot warehouse. They had taken a milliner called Annie as a lodger.

They were the only two family members left locally. At that time her son William was living in Camberwell, London, and working as a compositor; perhaps he had moved away from Newlyn after the death of his older brother John, also a printer. Joe was living in Warwickshire and James in Kingsbridge, with Grace and also Thomas’ wife Mary in the Plymouth area (Thomas was away on board the Himalaya for that census), and Samuel was in Australia, where it appears he married later that year.

In early 1894 Albania married Seth Lemmon who lived in the next street with his sister and worked as a draper’s assistant.The following year she gave birth to twins, but while Harold survived baby Arthur died at or soon after birth.

In 1900 it appears that Samuel got re-married to a lady called Margaret Lewis in Australia and that they travelled round in south-east Australia, having their children: a daughter and five sons – including an Albania, a Thomas Rowe and an Arthur Harold.

By 1901 Patience and Albania were themselves found in Plymouth, with Seth named as head of the household and 5-year-old Harold with them. Although I can’t check whether Patience was living there or visiting, as she was 76 I suspect she would have been living close to her family as three of her surviving children: Grace and James Richards, Thomas (when not at sea) and Mary Tremethick, and of course Albania and Seth Lemmon, were now living in and around Plymouth. James and Kate were also in Devon (Kingsbridge). At some point in the 1900s Joe and Bessie also moved back to Devon (to Exeter and later Colebrook) – although at the time of the 1901 census they were living in Oxford.

In addition her older sister Grace D Rowe and also many nephews and nieces from the Victor and Rowe branches of the Rowe family were living close by, moved up from Newlyn and Mousehole. Patience was also still in touch with retired lighthouse keeper William Crask, her daughter Annie‘s widower, and he was also listed in Albania and Seth’s household on the night of the 1901 census.

In 1902 Albania and Seth had another son, who they again named Arthur.

There was sad news in 1905 when her coachman son James died and was buried in Kingsbridge, leaving Kate with her three surviving children John, Patience and Lena.

Patience died in summer 1908 in Plymouth, three years after her older sister milliner Grace D Rowe who also died in Plymouth.

Grace was baptised on 17 May 1857 in Paul Church up on the hill above Newlyn where her father Thomas Tremethick worked as a mariner. Thomas and wife Patience Daniel Rowe lived in the east Street-an-Nowan area of Newlyn.

Grace was the eldest daughter with two older brothers Joseph and James, and seven younger brothers and sisters: Thomas, Annie, John, Albania, Samuel, William and Patience.

By April 1861 they were living in a small street with its own water pump called Foundry Lane; her widowed grandfather William Rowe was living in the same small street with her dressmaker Aunt Grace Rowe there with him.

1869 her grandfather William Rowe died; she had never known her grandmother Alice Daniel (later Rowe) who died before she was born but whose name she bore.

1871 the family were living round the corner in Chapel Street and Grace was still at school. Her father Thomas Tremethick died c February 1878

St Peter’s Church, Newlyn

On 1 September 1880 Grace married sailor James Richards in the new St Peter’s Church in Newlyn. James was the son of a coastguard John Richards and his wife Elizabeth. Although born in Newlyn James had lived for much of his youth in Tresco on the Isles of Scilly. [Tresco is justly famous for its beautiful gardens, but I went there on my honeymoon and still feel haunted by one small section of their gardens which they had filled of the figureheads of wrecked ships, staring forever sightlessly.]

James had joined the navy and at the time of their marriage was working as a quartermaster on HMS Frolic [the least intimidating name for a naval ship I’ve ever heard!]. Grace was the first of her brothers and sisters to marry and given her father had died two years previously, her older bother Joseph, a GWR clerk, was her witness.

By April 1881 the young couple were living in Herbert Place, Stoke Damerel [Plymouth, Devon] where James was again quartermaster. Grace’s youngest sister, 8-year-old schoolgirl Patience was visiting at the time. They had neighbours on both sides with the surname Davey who worked in the Dockyards, one Cornish and one from Devon.

In spring 1882 their first son, Albert Morris Tremethick Richards was born, but died the following April. They did have more children: their next son, Stanley, was born in 1887, followed by Mabel c1889, Gladys c October 1890 and Wilbert J c1898.

In April 1891 Frederick Richards was visiting, he was a 13-year-old boy who’d been born in the Isles of Scilly; his precise family connection is still escaping me. Grace’s younger brother Thomas Tremethick and his wife Mary were living a couple of houses along Herbert Street.

Grace’s widowed mother Patience Daniel Tremethick (nee Rowe) had moved to Plymouth from Newlyn by 1901, probably to be near her four children, and was living at 4 Maybank Road with Grace’s younger married sister, Albania Lemmon.

In 1902 Grace’s oldest surviving son Stanley began military service with the Royal Navy; he was based on the Vivid training ship, where his second cousin John Victor would also serve a few years later. Stanley worked as a ship-wright.

The family continued to live in Herbert Place as I find them living there in April 1911, they had Edith Woodfield, James’ married younger sister, visiting. Like Grace she had also had 5 children, one of whom had died, and she was noted to be of independent means. James was by now working as a canvasser for the Great Western Railway, son John as a shipwright, and 2nd daughter Gladys as a clerk in a draper’s shop.

There are many more Richards than Tremethicks about and I can’t follow their story after that. However it I find their elder daughter Mabel married Herbert J Davy c November 1914; I can’t access info as to whether he’s related to their neighbours on Herbert Place but it’s definitely a possibility.

Grace arrived in the world on Tuesday 7 December 1819 and baptised into the Methodist faith on 7 January 1821 in the Penzance area, probably in the local Trinity Methodist Chapel in Newlyn.

Born in Newlyn, Penzance, she was the daughter of William Rowe, a shoe-maker, and his wife Alice nee Daniel. She was the third of their 9 children and her middle name is likely to have been Daniel, after her mother.

In June 1841 her occupation was given as a female servant. However by 30 March 1851 she was working as a straw bonnet maker. There are some lovely examples here on Pinterest, although perhaps she would more likely have produced ones like in this Stanhope Forbes painting Fish Sale on the Beach. Although her occupation was given as 1861 as seamstress, in 1871 and 1881 her occupation was stated as milliner and 1891 as a retired milliner so presumably she had a flair for it, perhaps inherited from her shoemaker father, and maybe he got her started off with his local connections.

Foundry Lane Well, Street-an-Nowan, Newlyn in 2015

Her mother Alice died in 1845, aged only 52, and by March 1851 Grace, sisters Patience and Elizabeth were still at home with father William. By 1861 Grace was was still living in Street-An-Nowan in Foundry Lane looking after her father, who was by then 73, and working as a dressmaker. Patience had married Thomas Tremethick in 1853 but was also living in Foundry Lane.

The 13 households of Foundry Lane – and others round-about, would have been served by the well at the top of the Lane (the semi-circle which can be seen in the top photo). Grace and her neighbours would have wound the handle to bring up the bucket. This was in use until the early 1900s at which point the well was closed and a standpipe was connected, followed two years later by the addition of a tap. Users would still however had to carry the containers by hand back to their homes. The pipe will still in use in the 1930s.

William died in 1869 and was buried in Paul Cemetery on 19 December.

Chapel Street and Orchard Place, Street-an-Nowan, Newlyn

In 1844 Grace’s younger sister Alice, 5 years younger than Grace, had married Mousehole man Bernard Victor and in 1846 their daughter Mary was born. Mary married a Newlyn naval carpenter called Edward Kelynack in 1867.

By 1871 they had a daughter Mary and a baby son Edward and Mary was staying in Newlyn; Grace was lodging with Mary (her great-niece) in Chapel Street, literally a minute away from Foundry Lane, while Edward was away at sea in the East Indies.

By April 1881 Grace had moved considerably further than a minute’s walk from home, she’d moved to Martin Street, Stoke Damerel [Plymouth] in Devon. Mary was living there with Mary Jnr and Edward Jnr; once again father Edward was away, this time in Gibraltar.

Grace and Mary were still in Martin Street in 1891, although Mary Jnr had flown the nest and married Army Schoolmaster John Pearce in 1888. Edward was still living at home and working as a newspaper reporter; the household now included youngest child Lorina, born in summer 1883.

Tragedy struck their family c February 1901 when oldest daughter Mary Pearce died after a long illness.

By 31 March 1901 Edward Snr had retired as the Royal Navy’s Chief Carpenter and was living at home with Mary, Edward Jnr, Lorina and Grace. Their household also included their grand-daughter Beatrice Pearce who had not long lost her mother.

Edward Snr died in summer 1904 aged 63; he was living in Trelawny Road, Plymouth at the time.

Grace died the following year, in late 1905, in the Stoke Damerel area at the grand old age of 85. I hope that she was buried in one of her own bonnets.